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Over the weekend, rumors began that the role Vin Diesel has been teasing is actually the voice of Groot in James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Deadline reports that Diesel posted a captionless image of the character on his Facebook page, but then took it down and deleted all traces of it from his visible timeline. There was no mention of Diesel during Kevin Feige’s D23 presentation this weekend, though the Marvel Studios head did give mention to a few other cast members of the film.

“‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is an excellent comic book with excellent characters, but it is not particularly well known, and that excites us to debut something brand new,” Feige told the assembled audience at D23. “The director and co-writer of that film is James Gunn, who is doing an amazing job with his cast of Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou and John C. Reilly, Benicio Del Toro and Glenn Close. It’s an incredible ensemble.”

In addition to “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Marvel had some cast members from “Thor: The Dark World” on hand to discuss the upcoming sequel, including leading lady Natalie Portman, who spoke with Collider about what it was like to reunite with Chris Hemsworth and return to the role of Jane Foster.

“Chris is awesome. He’s super fun, he’s so professional,” Portman said. “We’ve definitely had a little bit of a problem on this movie where we would get giggle fits. We’re too old to be acting like that, but we definitely had a few days where the crew at a certain point was like, ‘Okay, guys, enough.'”

ScreenSlam has posted a video interview with Portman, who discussed where here character is at the start of the movie and how her relationship with Thor was affected by his actions in “The Avengers.”

“Jane is now working in London in a lab, she’s really focusing on her work,” Portman said. “She’s obviously been heartbroken about Thor, especially since he never called when he came to Earth to help the Avengers save Earth. At the beginning, she’s just really putting all her energy in to work when Thor shows up again. During the course of events, she gets really swept up into this battle and ends up on Asgard, which is a completely new environment for her.”

Also at D23 was Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, who discussed his character’s role in the upcoming sequel (via ScreenSlam).

“It’s a new twist, it’s a new iteration, it’s a new role of the dice, it’s a new game of poker for him,” said Hiddleston, “because, you know, the God of Mischief. That’s his moniker, that’s his epithet. He lives for wickedness, and basically you find him at the beginning of the film, buried in the deepest recesses of Asgard, and there is an enormous — just a very great threat on the state of peace in Asgard and the universe, which comes in the form of Malekith and the dark elves. The only person who can help for better or for worse is Loki.”

Finally, Alan Taylor was present for interviews at D23, and Collider spoke with the director about finding the balance in the characters’ relationships as they go into reshoots.

“We have relationships that we need to end the right way, and there are ways of ending them that we didn’t have before,” said Taylor. “We’re doing full scenes, scenes that weren’t in the movie before. We’re adding, we’re writing scenes, we’re creating scenes for the first time.”

Taylor also spoke with ScreenSlam about the development of Thor’s character in the upcoming film.

“His character is in motion. He’s growing,” said Taylor. “He was a young, impetuous prince in the first one and he’s dark in some way because he’s taking on more of the world. His character will continue to mature and deal with hard choices. He’s got a wonderful, complex relationship with one of the baddest guys in the universe who happens to be his brother. We take that to a place it’s never been before. I think people will be surprised by what Loki is capable of and how that plays out.”

Opens November 8

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” was also featured at D23, and star Chris Evans spoke with Collider about the upcoming film and the relationships within.

“There is, I think everyone knows that Peggy Carter is back in the movie. They had photos of her, I’m not — it’s happening. Peggy Carter’s there, which is a really beautiful — God, Hayley Atwell is so good, it’s not fair,” Evans told Collider. “But there’s some great stuff with — I don’t want to give anything away — but the whole movie is myself and Black Widow teaming up. They’re a very unlikely duo. It’s kind of an odd couple. We’ve both been working for someone else for a very long time. She is very morally flexible, Cap’s a boy scout. Something happens where Cap can’t quite trust anybody and he ends up having to trust a spy. The two of them form a very interesting, very layered connection. I really love the relationship with Scarlett in this movie. I think it makes the movie.”

Collider also spoke with brothers Joe and Anthony Russo about their experience directing the upcoming “Captain America” film. It’s short, but has some good information.

“What I loved most of all was the emotional story of a 14-year-old genius named Hiro who loses his big brother, and a robot named Baymax that heals his broken heart,” Hall said. “That feels like the makings of a Disney movie.”

Opens November 7, 2014

TRANSFORMERS 4

Red Carpet News TV has posted clips from a “2 Guns” press conference with Mark Wahlberg about his role in the upcoming “Transformers 4” and the human element of the film.

Opens June 27, 2014

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